Sacred Heart Prep boys' team to defend Central Coast Section soccer crown

Saturday, the Gators will defend their 2021 Central Coast Section Division II soccer championship as fourth-seeded SHP knocked out No. 1-seeded Hillsdale 3-1 in a Division II semifinal in San Mateo Wednesday evening.

“I thought we did a good job … of ultimately getting behind their defense,” said SHP co-head coach Armando del Rio.

Gators’ striker Luke Maxwell did a tremendous job getting behind the Knights’ defensive line. He did it enough to pick up an assist on SHP’s first goal of the game and then scored the final two to send SHP (13-5-2) to their third straight title game. They appeared in the 2020 Open Division championship game, losing 1-0 to Bellarmine. The Gators will play the winner of No. 6 Menlo-Atherton and No. 2 Mountain View on Saturday, at a time and place to be determined.

“He’s just a tenacious threat. … I wouldn’t want to defend him,” del Rio said of Maxwell. “He’s a guy who doesn’t stop.”

For Hillsdale (14-6-1), it was the end of one of the most successful seasons in school history. But SHP managed to blunt the Knights speed and attacks on the flank.

“We got out of our game a little bit,” said Hillsdale head coach Jaime Gomez, who would rather see his team play a possession game, playing balls to the feet.

Instead, the Knights tried to play through the air and in the end, that played right into the hands of the Gators. Having a distinct height advantage, the Gators won the majority of balls in the air, thus preventing the Knights from linking together through the midfield and then out to the flanks.

“We wanted to invite goal kicks. We felt we could win the ball … off their restarts,” del Rio said. “With 10 minutes left, we said, ‘We’re dominating the aerial game. We didn’t start doing that until later in the year.”

Del Rio also said he put more of a focus on Hillsdale midfielder Shay Quock, who is always in the middle of the Knights’ success. Del Rio said he adjusted him lineup to add another defensive midfielder to help provide coverage on Quock.

“We saw him as the link player on their counter,” del Rio said.

The scoring started early in this one as Maxwell’s dogged determination led to the first goal of the game just nine minutes in. On a ball that appeared destined to roll over the end line, Maxwell hustled to the ball, saving it from going out and sending a cross in front of the goal.

He found Billy Thompson, who poked a shot past a charging Hillsdale goalkeeper and into the net for a quick 1-0 lead.

It was short-lived, however, as the Knights showed how dangerous they could be when given space. Hillsdale’s left fullback Lucas Munroe jumped up into the attack with a run down the left flank. He sent a cross into the SHP penalty box, where Danny Aspillera was taken down for a Hillsdale penalty kick. Dan Lulsgeded took the spot kick, using a stutter-step run up before depositing a shot into the upper left corner to tie the game 1-all in the 11th minute.

“Hillsdale’s counter was causing issues for us in the first half,” del Rio said.

A little more than 10 minutes later, the Gators took the lead for good and it started with a non-call on what the Knights thought was a foul against Quock.

Hillsdale stopped playing for moment, which allowed the Gators to go on the attack. A through ball was sent to Maxwell, who despite being surrounded by defenders, managed to work his way through traffic, into the penalty box and then chipping a shot over the Knights goalkeeper for a 2-1 lead 22 minutes into the game.

The teams played to a virtual stalemate for most of the second half, although the Gators managed to outshoot the Knights 7-2 over the final 40 minutes.

And with less than 10 minutes to play, Maxwell iced the game with a breakaway strike for the final goal of the game.

“I thought [the game] was pretty even. They’re a good team,” Gomez said. “Both teams were matched up pretty well. … To get this far is a great accomplishment.”

In other CCS action, the Sequoia boys’ squad, seeded No. 2 in the Division IV bracket, advanced to the finals for the first time since sharing the 1995 DII championship with Los Gatos. The Ravens beat No. 3 Seaside 2-1 Wednesday. Sequoia will take on No. 1 King City Saturday at a time and place to be determined. King City took out No. 5 Summit Prep, 3-1.

The Aragon boys, seeded No. 1 in Division I, will play in its first-ever CCS championship game after beating No. 4 Wilcox 2-0.

On the girls’ side, San Mateo, seeded No. 1 in Division III, saw it’s season come to an end with a 2-0 loss to No. 5 Pioneer.